


A Shadow over Armenelos

by saliache



Series: Vampire Celebrimbor AU [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: ???? - Freeform, Gen, M/M, Slice of Life, The Most Dangerous Game, Tyelpe not being a fan on the Sun, a hint of Miriel, also, also plot?, and bad things happening to innocent people, and not-so-innocent people, asshole Numenoreans, i guess there's some humor too, minor bdsm, no infant immortality, no less, oblique references to genitalia, of an honored prisoner-guest of Numenor, people being assholeish, seriously, slight mention of torture, sort of, to varying degrees of asshole, vampire Tyelpe becoming increasingly done with things, vampire Tyelpe in Numenor, which is about as dirty as this fic gets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 07:11:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10759323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saliache/pseuds/saliache
Summary: Ar-Pharazôn announces a hunt. Annatar plots. Celebrimbor is tired of being stuck in the middle. And he who hunts monsters...





	A Shadow over Armenelos

The King announces a hunt.

Annatar sits on Pharazôn's left, meek and demure in his veils and chains. Standing as you are behind him, you can see the bloodlust working its way through his body, subdued but never quite concealed. It has been a long time since he has hunted, after all.

You, on the other hand...

"-a shame that none of our hounds have taken to you, Zigûr. You would enjoy the hunt, I think," Pharazôn is saying.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Annatar says carelessly. You know him better; it is a feint. Annatar hungers for violence. He has craved it more and more with the passing of the years, whether influenced by his Ring or by the unbearable pretentiousness and hypocrisy the two of you have been steeped in... "What need have I of hounds when I have a better hunter than them all already?"

Pharazôn looks at you, the first bits of fear and comprehension dawning in his eyes. You ignore him and instead smile demurely, eyes flicking downward, and lean forward to nip at Annatar's throat. You can taste the impurities in the gold of his collar; silver, copper, lead, sulfides, carbonate. A hint of antimony.

"Such crude metalwork," you croon. "Why let these tiresome mortals defile your body when I could forge you restraints worthy of the Ring-lord?"

Sometimes you wonder if he will ever deign to collar you for your impertinence.

A hand reaches up to tug gently at your plait, drawing you to your knees, but Annatar focuses his attention on your host. He speaks; something in Adûnaic. Words lie, so you instead focus on the state of their bodies.

Whatever Annatar said has frightened the man, who blanches and leans away. You can smell his fear, acrid and sour in the air. It smells _exhilarating_ – and you didn't even have to bare your fangs! Amused satisfaction radiates from Annatar.

The Queen, of course, always smells of fear.

* * *

Outside Armenelos, in the scrublands where vast forests once stood, roam the outcasts. Half-mad transients, no better than bandits, Pharazôn explains, their numbers have grown in recent years. Escaped slaves, fleeing Elf-lovers, social outcasts, and debtors have swollen their ranks, and traitors in the King's court aid them in secret. Those of noble lineage or who are favored by the King hunt them for sport.

This is Annatar's favorite game.

You kneel at his left, naked and excited under your cloak, and listen as he discusses strategy with the royal huntsmaster and the head of the city's guard. Annatar keeps your plait in hand, as effective a leash as any, so you keep up the ruse.

They decide to begin the hunt the next morning.

You _could have been clothed the entire time_ , and _not_ freezing your toes off in this abominable winter weather! Nonetheless – you decide to hunt tonight. Prey in the city is meek and unresisting.

The meeting is adjourned. Annatar gives you a fond look, as if sensing your disgust, before releasing your hair. "I believe the King and his ilk are in for a surprise tomorrow."

"I'm not a dog, you know," you grumble at him in his favored language. There is no heat to your words; he is planning something. You can feel it. After so many years together the two of you have learned to work together, of a sorts.

"Of course not," his voice is still mild, and his fingers press at your lips. You bare your fangs obligingly. "You are altogether too intelligent and intractable to be a hound of any sort."

"Thanks," you mumble as he begins probing at your teeth. Then, in Adûnaic, "Am I to be glad that you chose not to make of me a werewolf, then?"

That startles a laugh out of him and you grin, even if it jams his fingers against your cheek uncomfortably.

"Would I have been as happy as one, I wonder?" you ask, lisping against the obstruction of Annatar's hand.

His face becomes pensive, even brooding, as it does each time you bring the question up. "Even if I had been able to turn you before your ill-timed demise..."

"What about a werewolf-vampire hybrid?"

"Surely you know enough of biology to understand how impossible, not to mention impractical, that would be?"

An old jest, old words in familiar phrases given new context by new language.

"I do think," you begin hesitantly, "that sometimes you choose to be the impossible out of sheer contrariness."

New words, veering off the familiar path and into new and dangerous territory.

Annatar withdraws his hand, frowning. "What a ridiculous concept."

"Silly me, then." No doubt Annatar would call it by other words, but he has always held onto the belief of his own self-righteousness. The two of you were very alike in that regard.

Annatar heaves a huge, wordless sigh. "Someday you may even mean it."

"Never," you promise, kissing him full on the mouth. "How else would I keep your ego from drowning us both in its vastness?"

Then you go to sate your thirst. You want to give Pharazôn the idea that you are a ruthlessly efficient killing machine, not a bloodthirsty berserker.

* * *

By dawn, the bodies of two thieves and a mendicant have sunken to the bottom of the river and you are safely swathed in layers of heavy, dark cloth. Your feet sting at the occasional hint of sunlight but your belly is full, and so you are content. Pharazôn eyes your lassitude with distrust; you bow mockingly at him.

He stiffens and looks away.

"You provoke him unjustly, my dear," Annatar says, just loud enough for the closest servants to hear. "Save your hunger for the hunt." Then, quieter, "how much _did_ you feed, last night?"

You tell him. He worries. He needn't; you conquered that postprandial torpor long ago, even if he is reluctant to believe you when you tell him.

The sun rises higher as the two of you wait, hot and blinding even in this cold season. Nobles and armsmen join you in turns, and by the time Pharazôn appears and the cavalcade embarks, it is nearly noon. The crowds, as always, bow quietly before the presence of their King. Such a difference from your city, where her citizens laughed or cheered or called out to you by turns.

You find it unbearably pretentious.

The scrublands are no better. What little vegetation grows is barely waist-high at best, thin and thorny in the eroded topsoil. The sun bears down on you, and despite your earlier assurances you become irritable and tired, like a Man denied rest for too many days.

The trackers find their first prey, a young woman nursing a babe who hid too close to the road; when she fails to produce proof of her citizenship Pharazôn's retainers begin their bloody work.

Even her wails when they gut her and slay the child fail to elicit much response. Perhaps you did overeat last night.

Still, when the column moves on you linger behind, cutting off her agonized cries with hard fingers and an even harder twist. Her spirit flees your presence, terrified. The child's follows in its mother's tracks, confused and uncomprehending. You hope they make it safely to the shelter of Mandos' Halls.

Annatar says nothing when you rejoin him. Pharazôn makes a crass joke about your ability to track even the easiest of prey. You imagine what it would be like to snap his neck, to see the fear in his eyes as his body fails.

You wonder how upset the Queen would be to hear of her husband's death, or how happy.

But that is not Annatar's plan, and you are reasonably certain that whatever Annatar has planned will result in pain and abject humiliation on an epic scale, so you bide your time.

Thankfully, Pharazôn moves on to safer topics when he sees that he has failed to rouse your ire, and by the time the trackers find evidence of more prey, the Sun is low in the sky.

It is a food cache, nothing more. The King's men busy themselves spoiling the food, destroying half the jugs of water and poisoning the rest. They burn clothes and bandages, and trample medicines into the dust.

"Such waste," Annatar says.

"Imagine their despair when they come by and see all their hoarded goods despoiled," Pharazôn gloats. "The last thing on their minds will be poison, and thus shall we rid ourselves of yet another band of vermin infesting our glorious land."

"The gods must be pleased."

You startle. Just what _is_ Annatar planning? Calling on the Valar is as close to blasphemy as he gets. To call upon them thusly–

Pharazôn is laughing. "We have no need of the Lords of the West, Zigûr."

"When did I speak of the cowards in the West?" Annatar is smiling, his voice light in jest. This is wrong. Even he needs must be wary against the marshalled power of the Valar, even if he does not bend to their yoke! They sank an _entire continent_ – your _homeland_ – the last time they showed their wrath.

You must have conveyed your discontent, for both of them turn to face you.

"I scent prey," you lie, fleeing into the darkening wilderness.

* * *

That night, the hunters announce their presence with a great mass of tents and enormous bonfires. Profligate waste, but you have long since learned to associate that with the Man who would be King.

You watch as they burn enormous armfuls of stunted, thorny plants, troubled. Some men busy themselves sharpening stakes they will use to hang the unfortunate. Or impale, or crucify. Would that you did not know the use of such implements!

By the sounds and smells coming from the greatest tent, there must be an entire feast in there. For Pharazôn to flaunt himself thusly...

You are leaving to go find somewhere less enraging to be when you stumble into a man taking aim at one of the sentries.

The two of you gape at each other, surprised. Then he tries to shoot you. You snag the arrow midair and jump on him, ignoring his feeble attempts to batter you away with his bow. You bare your fangs against his neck, feeling the singing of blood rushing through the great vessels there, and he wets himself in terror. It does not make him smell better.

"Cease that," you grumble. "If I wanted you dead I would have killed you already."

The Man shits himself and makes an abortive attempt to shove his knee into your groin. You sigh, nip at him, curious about the taste of him despite yourself, and let him escape. With luck he will lead you right back to his camp.

He does.

You track him for three hours, through winding hills and eroded stone gullies and tiny hidden paths crossing fields of boulders until he leads you to a little hidden valley where his camp lies sheltered from prying eyes.

The outlaws' camp mirrors Pharazôn's in size; it must contain twice or three times as many people. Closer to three, you count, as the Man's return stirs it like an oversized hornet's nest. It is almost funny, in a way.

Then their leader – seasoned enough to be suspicious, a true military commander, really – emerges, crying for quiet. His face is heartbreakingly familiar, and before you can stop yourself you have called out to him like you would an old friend.

What a stupid, _stupid_ move.

Men rush at you; they are armed with nets and chains rather than blades and you have no desire to be the hunted tonight, so you let them surround you.

You offer your surrender.

Being rightfully suspicious of a mysterious figure stalking their camp at night, they wait for you to drape yourself in restraints before taking you to their camp.

Up close, their commander's resemblance is less. His face is closed. Angry. He wants to know how you know of his distant ( _Elven_ , you discern) ancestress and orders his men to reveal your face.

You train your eyes on the ground, hoping he does not notice them. Other than those you could almost pass for what you once were.

It seems to work; he exclaims softly and his men step back to give the two of you room. But he slides his hand under your chin, willing your face up. You let your eyes flutter shut, wishing – _something_ – before giving up the ruse.

He springs back, horrified. His men attack. They are slow, so slow. In the time it takes for them to throw themselves at you, you have already managed to down their leader. He thrashes in your grip, desperate, as you put his body up as a shield against the rest. His blood sings to you, infinitely tempting.

But no. You have a better (worse?) idea.

* * *

By the time Annatar leads Pharazôn to you, the entire encampment is silent, its inhabitants dead or fled. Pharazôn exclaims when he sees the body you have hung from the nearest tent like a banner.

"Proof," Annatar notes, "of treachery within the Great Houses of the realm."

"The traitors who call themselves Faithful," Pharazôn gags, visibly attempting to hold his breakfast down. His mount fares little better, nervous at the smell of blood and dancing with the urge to be gone. "But – dear gods – like this?"

"Rewarded as a traitor deserves," you murmur demurely. You are veiled once more against the Sun and so he cannot see the look on your face. "Let him hang."

The look Annatar gives you is longsuffering. You tilt your head, acknowledging the irony of your words.

"I do hope their deaths were appropriately terrible." You can barely keep bitter sarcasm out of your voice. If circumstances had been different you could have been one of the victims here.

"And I _did_ tell you that I had the best hunter," Annatar intervenes, smiling broadly. "Did I not?" Then, building on something he must have begun last night, "How gifted he is – how _admirable_."

Admirable? You? What a ridiculous nonsense-phrase. Annatar must be planning something truly magnificent – or terrible. You resolve to ask him about it when you return to Armenelos. For not telling you of his plans beforehand, you also resolve to repeat the chemical composition of the paints on your walls at him for the next three nights. In the Black Speech. He hates it when you add new words to his lexicon unprompted.

Pharazôn, backed into some corner you cannot see, eyes you once, crudely. Then he wheels his mount around and orders a retreat back to his own encampment. You do not think he will sleep soundly outside the presumed safety of solid walls ever again. Nor will he return to this site.

You do, the next night.

You cut the commander down when he begins to thrash, laying him gently down on the beaten earth. Behind you his men also stir, their dismemberment making them sluggish. As they turn vengeful eyes toward you, you tell them how much you hope they will be a plague on the rotten society that turned them out.

 


End file.
